Guy Walters is the author of nine books, which include four wartime thrillers and the critically acclaimed histories Hunting Evil and Berlin Games. Frustrated at the enormous amount of junk history around, Guy sees it as his personal mission to wage war on ignorance and misconceptions about the past. Guy is currently working on a new history of the Great Escape, and is also studying for his PhD at Newcastle University. His website is www.guywalters.com and is @guywalters on Twitter.

Are British women cut out to make honey-trap agents?

With all the talk of Katia Zatuliveter being an alleged 'honey-trap' agent for the Russians, I do wonder whether our Secret Intelligence Service also employs similar weapons in its espionage armoury. Is MI6 sending out well-bred Kate Middleton lookalikes from the Shires to seduce oligarchs and members of Al-Qaeda? Or are British women not the types to shut their eyes and think of Queen and Country?

In The Big Breach, erstwhile MI6 officer Richard Tomlinson noted how his former employer avoided honey-trap approaches, 'recognising that sexual attraction is too complex to predict or control'. This sounds reasonable, but I'm sure there are important cultural and sociological reasons as to why we Brits might not use Home Counties Honeys (that sounds like a recherché magazine). It just seems hard to imagine that any British woman would go on such a mission, whereas I suspect it is easier to find Eastern Europeans to act as Mata Haris. Maybe I'm being completely prejudiced and naïve, but I can't see it.

The nearest I can find to an MI6 honey-trap agent is a Central European woman living in Lisbon during the war who was codenamed ECCLESIASTIC. When she was recruited by MI6 in June 1944, she was the mistress of a German intelligence officer called Franz Koschnik. According to one of her case officers, ECCLESIASTIC enjoyed 'the game of mobilizing her ample female resources against normal male instincts' and she successfully procured much intelligence from Koschnik as well as feeding him false information. In December 1944, ECCLESIASTIC was tasked with seducing another German, who was suspected of organising sabotage in liberated France. Unfortunately, in this instance, her charms were not so successful. 'Even two prolonged kissing bouts at his flat, one of which lasted 35 minutes, have not had the desired effect,' her case officer reported.

Of course, there's not one man alive who hasn't – in his more fanciful, perhaps seedier moments – relished the idea of being a 'Romeo agent', and in this department, we do have some previous, albeit on the wrong side. In 1972, the KGB recruited John Symonds, a bent London copper who escaped a trial at the Old Bailey. For eight years, and under the codename SCOT or SKOT, Symonds was employed to seduce Western embassy female staff on four continents. In 1980, tiring of a life that was probably less glamorous than it sounds, he returned to London where he was sentenced to two years in prison.

Today, Symonds is unrepentant: “I'd say: ‘join the KGB and see the world’ – first class. I went to all over the world on these jobs and I had a marvellous time. I stayed in the best hotels, I visited all the best beaches, I've had access to beautiful women, unlimited food, champagne, caviar whatever you like and I had a wonderful time. That was my KGB experience. I don't regret a minute of it …”

Perhaps there's something in it. British women, take note. You may even get a gong.